Central
America:
A Microcosm of U.S. Cold War Policy

Today, Central America is at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy. We are told
by the current administration that the region is of primary importance to U.S. vital
interests and that it is currently threatened by communist aggression. Central America has
become a pawn in the Cold War.

Cold War Strategy

The Cold War was born as a result of different approaches to the needs of the
post-World War II world as held by the United States and the Soviet Union. Each of the two
nations saw the other, in mirror-image, as the worlds bully. Owing to its possession
of the atomic bomb and economic wealth, the United States maintained that world peace and
order depended on the existence of prosperity and political democracy. Each became the
handmaiden of the other and caused the Americans to conclude that poverty and economic
depression bred totalitarianism, revolution and communism, and possibly war. For the
United States, continued liberty and prosperity were linked to a free world. On the other
hand, the Soviets were motivated by traditional Russian nationalism, the communist
ideology, and a craving for security against a revived Germany.1

Against this backdrop, the first area of confrontation was Europe. Soviet policies
toward Eastern Europe, German reunification, and the United Nations contributed to the
stiffening U.S. attitude toward Moscow. The American attitude change was reflected in
policy implementation from postwar reconstruction programs for individual countries to the
European Recovery Program (or the Marshall Plan, as it was popularly known) and the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization. Essentially, through economic revitalization of wartorn
European nations, the Truman administration wanted to prevent communist subversive inroads
into Western Europe; it also wanted to secure the region from military attack.2

Truman's containment policy may have prevented communism from capturing Western Europe,
but it did not prevent the Soviets from strengthening their hold on Eastern Europe and
developing the atomic bomb, the Chinese Communists from toppling Chiang Kai-shek, or the
North Koreans from crossing the 38th parallel. These events, coupled with the
anticommunist emotional hysteria at home, contributed significantly to the 1952
presidential election of Dwight D. Eisenhower.

The Republicans promised a "New Look" in foreign policy, as best espoused by
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles. Characterized as a rigid moralist, Dulles advocated
massive retaliation and support for wars of national liberation to turn back the communist
tide. Despite this bold rhetoric, the Eisenhower administration did not resort to massive
retaliation in Indochina in 1954, nor did it intervene to support the Hungarian freedom
fighters in 1956. Instead, containment continued, predicated on the increased fear of a
global communist conspiracy, if not overt, then through subversion. The communist
conspiracy thesis caused confusion for Americans in the rising tide of Third World
nationalism, which demanded the ouster of oligarchs and implementation of government
socialism to meet the needs of less fortunate masses.

The efforts to strengthen NATO, the establishment of the Southeast Asian Treaty
Organization, support for the Shah of Iran, Eisenhower's Middle Eastern Doctrine, and the
1958 Formosan and Berlin crises illustrate the policy application of continued
containment. Under such circumstances, it is understandable that Eisenhower concluded in
his farewell address on 17 January 1961 that "we face a hostile
ideologyglobal in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and
insidious in method."3

Compared to the quiet and sometimes complacent, fatherly image of Eisenhower,
Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson came across as bold and aggressive
individuals during the 1960s. Kennedy came to Washington in 1961 committed to winning the
Cold War. Both he and Johnson had shared the early Cold War experiences, and Johnson had
witnessed those events leading to World War II. So had their advisors. Both presidents
were confident of U.S. superiority and the nation's ability to lead its allies, but they
arrived on the scene when a diffusion of world power was taking place: NATO was demanding
greater independence from Washington, and Third World nationalism commanded more autonomy.
Both leaders, however, clung to the past, still thinking that the United States could
direct events through the execution of arms and aid. Each exhibited a growing tendency
toward military solutions. This last point is best illustrated by the continued arms
buildup supposedly to deter nuclear conflicts, creation of the special forces to conduct
counterinsurgency wars, and reliance on conventional forces to handle limited wars. The
confrontation between changing world realities and the presidents clinging to tradition,
caused Senator J. William Fulbright (D. -Arkansas) to conclude that this "arrogance
of power" left the United States a "crippled giant" by the end of the
1960s. The experience in Vietnam proved Fulbright's point all too well.4

The presidency of Richard Nixon witnessed striking diplomatic changes, described by at
least one historian as the "great Nixon turnaround." Nixon's view of the world
was similar to that of his National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State, Henry
A. Kissinger, and was adhered to by President Gerald R. Ford after Nixon resigned.
Accordingly, there were five power centers in the world: the Soviet Union, the United
States, China, Japan, and the Common Market countries of Western Europe. Each had
responsibilities to maintain order in its sphere and not intrude in the areas dominated by
the others. Thus, small nations could no longer play off the major powers against one
another or count on outside help. The policy also permitted the United States to contain
both the Soviet Union and China by having them contain each other. Détente made common
sense. The Cold War proved too expensive, and because of the U.S. participation in
Vietnam, Congress demanded that the United States play a more limited role in the world.
Détente, however, was premised on shaky grounds: that the major powers would remain in
their own spheres and that violent nationalism in the Third World would subside. Neither
premise proved correct.5

At its start, the Carter administration was divided by conflicting interpretations of
Soviet intentions and capabilities. While Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and the State
Department thought that the Soviets were adversaries with whom the United States could
negotiate, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and his White House staff feared
continuing Soviet expansion. In retrospect, Carter came to adopt Brzezinski's
recommendation that U.S. policy read as "a challenge to [Soviet] legitimacy and thus
to their very existence." The Soviets were denounced for supporting a proxy war in
Ethiopia, using Cubans to battle Somalia, supporting the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia,
and, finally, invading Afghanistan. Diminished trade relations with the Soviet Union,
human rights proclamations against the Soviets, enhanced trade with the People's Republic
of China, the Carter Doctrine proclamation, and the boycott of the 1980 Olympics
illustrate the Cold War mentality of the Carter presidency.6

Despite Carter's apparent continuation of the containment policy, Ronald Reagan came to
the White House, in January 1981, convinced that the U.S. standing in the world had
diminished significantly in the recent past. Carter's foreign policy was considered too
soft on communism. Reagan was determined to change course and restore the United States to
its primary world position. Reagan's bold declarations reminded many observers of the
Eisenhower-Dulles years. During the next four years, the aggressive tone continued in
bilateral relations with the Soviets and about such issues as Afghanistan, Poland, the
trans-European gas pipeline, and the Middle East. The administration also appeared as
Taiwan's close ally. The operational policy, however, did not match the rhetoric, and a
clear case could be made that the containment policies of the preceding presidents
continued.7

This brief synopsis of U.S. foreign policy from 1945 to 1984 illustrates the primacy of
relations with the Soviet Union. Despite changes in rhetoric and strategy, U.S. policy
continually sought the containment of Soviet communism.

U.S. Policy toward Latin America

U.S. policy toward Latin America from 1945 to 1984 followed the contours of global
strategy. First, the inter-American system was brought into the struggle against external
aggression. By the Act of Chapultepec adopted in 1945 at Mexico City, the American
republics agreed to consult before taking action against acts of aggression by any
hemispheric nation. Two years later at Rio de Janeiro, at which time the United States had
more sharply defined the Soviet threat, participants agreed to provide for assistance
against aggressors prior to consultation. When the threat to hemispheric security was
other than direct aggression, the American states agreed to joint action following
consultation. At Bogotá in 1948, the inter-American Defense Board was charged with
developing hemispheric defense plans. Finally, in 1951, after six years of debate, the
U.S. Congress approved the Mutual Security Act, initially providing $38 million for direct
military assistance to Latin American nations whose participation in hemispheric defense
was determined essentially by the president.8

During the same time period, 1945-51, administration spokesmenSecretaries
of State Dean Acheson and George C. Marshall, together with Assistant Secretary of State
for Latin American Affairs Edward G. Millercontinued to utter traditional
themes regarding inter-American relations: pleas for political stability, faith in
democracy, and promises of nonintervention in the internal affairs of its southern
neighbors.9 The statements contradicted the policy actions, which also ignored
the demands of many Latin Americans for an end to dictatorships and an improvement in the
quality of life for the less fortunate. Communism was not yet a threat to the hemisphere.

The Eisenhower-Dulles rhetoric regarding Latin America was no less bold than the
statements regarding the Soviet Union. Truman was castigated for ignoring the hemisphere's
economic and social needs. Milton Eisenhower's Report on Latin America and a
similar report by the Commission on Foreign Economic Policy, both issued in 1953, gave
hope for new directions in U.S. policy toward Latin America. Both argued for a more
liberal trade policy featuring tariff reductions and increased trade with Eastern Europe.10

These recommendations were in sharp contrast to Eisenhower's closest advisors,
businessmen who looked on the world as something that could be managed and who were
advocates of private enterprise in a world increasingly turning toward revolutions and
socialism. Assistant Secretaries of State for Latin American AffairsJohn M.
Cabot, Henry F. Holland, and Roy R. Rubbottomconsistently echoed similar
thoughts. Thus, rather than following through on the Milton Eisenhower and Randall
Commission reports, the United States advised Latin American countries to create an
environment conducive to private investment and, if that was accomplished, federal monies
would be used to support the necessary infrastructures.11

Compatible with this approach, Secretary of State Dulles's strident anticommunist
campaign applied to Latin America. According to Dulles, communism, or anything that
resembled it, was a threat to U.S. interests. Communists, however identified, were
considered agents of the Soviet Union and therefore linked to the international conspiracy
against the United States. At the tenth Inter-American Conference of American States,
which met in Caracas in March 1954, Dulles warned that the hemisphere was imperiled by
international communism. After spirited debate, the conference adopted a U.S. sponsored
resolution asserting that any American nation subjected to communist political control was
considered foreign intervention and a threat to the peace of the Americas. As such,
decisive collective action was called for, presumably under the 1947 Rio Treaty.12

Comparable to continuing Truman's global containment policy, the Eisenhower-Dulles team
brought no appreciable change in U.S. policy toward Latin America. There was an increase
in North-South trade during the decade, but so too was there an increase in the amount of
military assistance flowing southward. The net result was the entrenchment of
anticommunist dictatorships in Latin America. The illusion of stability was shattered in
1958 with the near loss of life of then-Vice-President Richard Nixon during a Latin
American tour, as well as a subsequent visit by Milton Eisenhower that resulted in his The
Wine Is Bitter. The portents of revolution caused incoming President John F. Kennedy
to warn that it was "one minute to midnight" in Latin America.

Kennedy personallyand through his spokesmen, Adolf A. Berle, Adlai
Stevenson, and Edward M. Martinexpressed a willingness to accept moderately
leftist governments that were meeting the "revolution of rising expectations" by
sponsoring constructive change. In fact, the new administration was intolerant of military
coups against such governments, as evidenced by U.S. action regarding Peru in 1962 and the
Dominican Republic a year later. Avoiding direct intervention, the United States used its
leverage to keep liberal regimes in power.13

In contrast, Lyndon Johnson gave support to those governments in sympathy with U.S.
policies, which meant governments of the right and extreme right. This tendency was more
pronounced after the 1965 Dominican Republic crisis and the appointment of Thomas C. Mann
as Assistant Secretary of State for Latin American Affairs. Mann was emphatic: communism
in the Western Hemisphere was intolerable because it threatened U.S. national security.14
The communist issue intensified as a result of Fidel Castro's rise to power in Cuba which
generated fear that his revolution would spread throughout the hemisphere. For its part,
the United States forced the isolation of Cuba from hemispheric affairs, supported
anti-Castro forces, and even sponsored assassination plots. In response to this new
communist threat, the United States implemented the Alliance for Progress in 1961. In
return for financial support, Latin American governments pledged themselves to agrarian
and tax reformsmeasures not welcomed by Latin elites. However, little
significant progress was made in tearing down the vestiges of traditional society.
Moreover, because of civil disruptions at home, the agony of Vietnam, and the perceived
lessened threat of Fidel Castro by mid-decade, the United States lost interest in the
Alliance for Progress, which passed quietly in 1971.15

The drift away from Latin America continued under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald
Ford. Inter-American affairs were relegated to a veritable limbo. Trade, not aid, was the
guidepost. Agreements with the Soviet Union, the misadventures of Ché Guevara, and
Castro's growing dependence on the détente minded Soviet Union lessened the threat to
security and, coupled with the 1973 U.S. supported overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile,
lessened the communist threat to the hemisphere. Cambodia, China, and the Middle East in
global affairs, plus Watergate on the domestic scene, were more important than Latin
America. "Benign neglect" best described U.S. policy toward Latin America during
the first half of the 1970s. Without pressure from the north, right-wing military
dictatorships became commonplace in the south.

The energy crisis focused new attention on Latin America. Rich in natural resources,
including oil, Latin America became more important to the United States. Henry Kissinger
recognized this fact in 1976 and began a new dialogue with Latin American nations.
President Jimmy Carter recognized the new realities too. He accepted the report by the
Center for Inter-American Relations (commonly known as the Linowitz Report) that Latin
America had achieved a degree of independence from the United States and that the outmoded
policies of domination and paternalism should be rejected. The 1977 Panama Canal treaties
were evidence of this change in U.S. thinking.16

Admitting that the region had been ignored since the Alliance for Progress, Assistant
Secretary of State for lnter-American Affairs Terence A. Toddman and his deputy William H.
Leurs promised new programs to meet the economic and social needs of Latin-America. Aid,
however, was contingent on improvement in human rights. Use of human rights criteria was
not new to U.S. foreign policy. Provisions in the 1973 Foreign Assistance Act, 1975 Food
Assistance Act, and 1976 Security Assistance and Arms Export Control Act provided for
withholding aid where there were human rights violations. The idealistic Carter, however,
promised new emphasis, but more than rhetoric was needed to persuade military governments.
Despite promises by various Latin leaders, there was minimal improvement in human rights
or in meeting the social and economic needs of many of Latin America's traditionally
impoverished citizens.17

Reagan's Latin American policy altered Carter's direction. Latin America was now placed
within the context of East-West relations, not North-South. In application, human rights
were to be promoted through quiet diplomacy, not through public denunciations and aid
cutoffs. Because Soviet expansion, rather than economic development, was emphasized,
military solutions were given first consideration.

Reagan's first foreign policy teamSecretary of State Alexander M. Haig,
Assistant Secretary for Latin American Affairs Thomas 0. Enders, and U.S. Ambassador Jeane
J. Kirkpatrickreflected these views. By the time that George Shultz replaced
Haig and Langhorne H. Motley succeeded Enders, the policy was in place.18 Thus,
since 1945, Latin America was not of prime importance in U.S. policy. Only when the threat
of communismreal or imaginedappeareddid the United States
respond. And then only briefly. Rather, U.S. failure to pursue constructive policies to
match the rhetoric of democratic and social change only strengthened the position of
oligarchical governments.

U.S. Policy Focused
on Central America

Central America was a microcosm of both Latin America and the world at large. U.S.
policy toward the region reflected the broader Cold War policies of each presidential
administration and, at the same time, the failure to respond to the inherent problems of
political dictatorship and social reform.

The "revolution of rising expectations" first surfaced in Central America at
the end of World War II. Material contributions to the Allied war effort caused the lower
socioeconomic groups to experience a degree of prosperity hitherto unknown, and the
middle-sectorgroups were encouraged by the idealistic goals of the Allies. The
middle sector, in particular, was responsible for the overthrow of General Maximiliano
Hernández Martínez in El Salvador and Jorge Ubico in Guatemala in 1944, the stepping
aside of Anastasio Somoza in Nicaragua in 1947, and the 1948 Costa Rican civil war. Their
success was short-lived, however, as dictatorships continued in Honduras and returned to
El Salvador and Nicaragua. Efforts for reform, particularly for labor, became nothing more
than paper promises.

Until 1947, the United States perceived no threat of international communism to the
region. Diplomats in Central America, analysts in the State Department, and the Central
Intelligence Agency concluded that the region was of scant use to the Soviets as allies or
sources of supplies. As a result, the National Security Council saw no need for a unified
anticommunist policy because the Soviet threat was only remotely potential and not
"immediately serious." The initial Military Assistance Program to Central
America stressed security of the Panama Canal, Mexico, and Venezuelan oil, not concern
about an international communist threat. At the same time, however, U.S. diplomats in
Central America warned that poverty was a breeding ground for communism. (Although lacking
concrete evidence, they also speculated that Moscow's agents were in the region.) The
existing order would soon be seriously threatened they cautioned.

After 1948, policymakers in Washington echoed these opinions. Secretaries Marshall and
Acheson and Assistant Secretary Miller recognized the need for social reform from 1949 to
1952, but the promises of aid from the European Recovery and Point Four programs brought
little to Central America.19 From 1952 to 1961 total aid to all Latin America
was $2.6 billion, a drastic increase over the $437 million during the Truman years, but
the total for the five Central American countries was only $336 million (7.5 percent of
the total). The terms under which the aid flowed reflected the management concepts of
Eisenhower's advisors. Although the United States assumed high initial costs for technical
assistance, the host countries agreed to assume 66 percent of the cost. For the Central
American nations, providing sufficient funds proved a difficult task; the amount of money
lost to high administrative costs and possible corruption only complicated their ability
to meet financial obligations. The major exports of the region were agricultural and were
dependent not only on fluctuating world market prices but on the mercy of U.S. tariffs.
Significant measurable improvement in the regional economy or social conditions was
lacking.20

Communism, however, became the overriding consideration of the Eisenhower
administration's policy toward Central America. Although not explicitly identified by
Secretary Dulles at Caracas in May 1954, Guatemala was the chief worry. Communists or
Marxists became influential in the administration of Juan José Arévalo from 1945 to 1950
and increased their presence after 1950 in the administration of Jacobo Arbenz. The United
States had no evidence of a link to Moscow, but the legislative program of both presidents
threatened the existing order, including the United Fruit Company. Given Dulles's
conspiracy thesis, the United States was able to justify its support of Carlos Castillo
Armas to invade the country from Honduras and eliminate communism from the hemisphere.
Thanks to the Caracas resolution, the issue was kept within hemispheric bounds. Subsequent
military agreements with Guatemala and El Salvador only contributed to the facade of
stability in Central America. The issues of constitutional government, disparity of
wealth, and social deprivations remained.21

Those issues, plus the fear of Castroism, contributed to John F. Kennedy's warning that
it was "one minute to midnight" in Latin America. Kennedy's tolerance of
moderately leftist governments and his opposition to military coups was evident in 1963 in
Honduras. The United States delayed recognition of Air Force Colonel Oswaldo Lopez
Arellano until he made promises to continue the reform programs of deposed President
Villeda Morales.22 Meanwhile, the Alliance for Progress, Peace Corps, and Food
for Peace programs promised new hope for the region. Coupled with increased grants from
the Inter-American Development Bank and Export-Import Bank, the five Central American
countries received $644 million in aid from the United States. This amount included
assistance to begin the Central American Common Market.23

However, like the rest of the hemisphere, Central America was lost in U.S. policy by
the mid-1960s because of Vietnam and the U.S. domestic crisis. The Central American
economies were never considered important to the United States, and the threat of
communism was viewed as minimal. After 1964, the Communist party was outlawed in all five
countries, and the small clandestine groups advocating insurgency were controllable
through the efforts of the local militias and civil authoritiesall of whom
supported U.S. foreign policy. Thus Lyndon Johnson's visit to Central America in 1968 was
only window dressing.24

Thereafter, until Jimmy Carter was inaugurated as President in January 1977, the United
States gave minimal attention to Central America. Foreign aid to the region decreased by
nearly 50 percent. Political dictatorships, except in Costa Rica, with concomitant loss of
human rights were prevalent. The economic and social conditions that served as breeding
grounds for communism after World War II remained.25 President Carter
criticized the Central American dictators for their human rights violations, however, and,
in March 1977, renounced military aid to Guatemala and El Salvador for their actions
before Congress could single out these countries for aid reduction as it did Uruguay,
Chile, and South Korea. But the withdrawal of aid had little impact on human rights: by
1980, for example, Guatemalan violations had actually increased by extremist groups, both
left and right, and by the government. The United States has gained little leverage in
Guatemalan politics.26

Conditions in Guatemala were soon overshadowed by events in Nicaragua and El Salvador,
which caused concern that history would be repeated by soon engulfing the region in
conflict. The forty-six-year Somoza dynasty in Nicaragua crumbled in July 1979 to the
Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). From the start, the United States had chosen
to deal with the middle-sector groups, which could be traced to the immediate post-World
War II era. Identified as the Committee of Twelve, they fell into disarray after the
assassination of their leader, Pedro Joaquím Chamorro, in January 1978. Subsequently, the
United States failed to mediate a settlement between the committee's successor, the Broad
Opposition Front (FAO), and Somoza. Thus, this attemptthe first postwar effort
by the United States to deal with a Central American middle sector-was
short-lived. In the meantime, the Sandinistas seized the initiative, increased the
violence, and gained widespread support after September 1978. During the following June,
the Sandinistas began their final offensive and, after refusing U.S. mediation efforts,
caused Somoza to flee the country on 17 July 1979. In Washington, a sense of optimism
briefly followed. The Sandinistas gave the governments of Costa Rica, Panama, and
Venezuela assurances of pluralism, meaning continuance of the private economic sector in
Nicaragua, along with promises of free elections. The Carter administration advanced $8
million in emergency relief and requested $75 million more from Congress for
reconstruction.

The reconstruction aid to Nicaragua was never to come. To U.S. observers, the
Sandinistas were moving farther left, restricting the private sector significantly,
violating the human rights of the opposition, and postponing elections. Events in El
Salvador were influencing U.S. policy.27

El Salvador had endured military dictatorships since 1932. As the economy expanded
after World War II, so did the middle sector, which, by 1972, was centered in the
Christian Democratic Party (PDC). The PDC won the presidential elections in 1972 and 1977
but was denied office by the military. In essence, this center-left group was crushed by
the military-landowner alliance. The guerrilla and "popular organizations" that
emerged during the 1970s were subjected to the military's repressive measures also. These
human rights violations caused Carter to cut military assistance, slash economic aid in
half to $10 million, and veto a $90-million aid package through the Inter-American
Development Bank. But to no avail. As in Guatemala, violence continued and increased by
late 1980. With El Salvador on the verge of civil war, the United States tried in vain to
find a communist responsible for El Salvador's problems.28

As Carter left office, he appeared to be willing to accept moderately leftist
governments, provided there was no Cuban influence, private property and human rights were
protected, and the Central American states agreed not to interfere in one another's
internal affairs. At the same time, Congress admitted the bankruptcy of previous policies,
yet solutions and a clear policy were not in sight.

President Reagan's bold words were matched by action in Central America. Reagan
believed that U.S. power and prestige in the region had dwindled during Carter's
administration in the face of Soviet-Cuban expansion. In addition, the Department of
Defense and the intelligence community were convinced that U.S. supremacy in the region
must be reasserted. Failure to act close to home would only encourage the Soviets to
become aggressive elsewhere. New ambassadors, Dean Hinton to El Salvador and John
Negropronte to Honduras, reflected these policies. During the next four years, the
administration's public statements consistently reflected these views.29

Quick to implement the President's policies, the Reagan administration reasoned that
the loss of El Salvador would cause havoc throughout the region. A suggested negotiated
settlement, caused by the failure of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN)
January 1981 offensive, was rejected by the United States because it would have provided
for the leftists entry into the government. The administration reasoned that this
result would have encouraged other regional leftists. Thus, the United States continued to
support the Salvadoran government and its plans for agrarian and constitutional reform,
while seeking a military solution. For 1981, an additional $25 million in military
assistance was provided, the number of U.S. training personnel increased from nineteen to
forty-five, and $63 million in economic aid extended. During the following year,
Salvadoran troops trained in the United States. However, the assistance did not stem the
tide. By late 1983, the FMLN claimed control of most of Chalatenango and Morazán
provinces, as well as portions of La Unión and Usulatan provinces. At the same time,
human rights violations in El Salvador increased, rather than abated.

El Salvador soon became entwined with U.S. policy toward Nicaragua, which was accused
of supplying arms to the FMLN. In addition, the Sandinistas became more restrictive at
home, militating against labor organizations and curtailing the press and free speech.
Such actions violated congressional requirements for lifting economic sanctions and
contributed to Reagan's perception of a Nicaraguan dictatorial regime. Expansion by the
Sandinista government into the private sector, increased trade with Communist bloc
countries, and the presence of foreign (particularly Cuban) advisors reaffirmed
Washington's judgment that Central America was falling under the umbrella of an East-West
confrontation.

The United States acted quickly to undermine the Sandinistas. Through the CIA, covert
assistance was provided to Nicaraguan exiles known as contras, who were mostly
ex-Somocistas. Based principally in Honduras, the contras carried out military
forays into northern Nicaragua and subsequently undertook the mining of harbors, burning
of crops, and destruction of oil depots. The Reagan administration also tightened the
economic noose on the government in Managua. An embargo was placed on Nicaraguan imports,
and pressure was placed on international financial institutions not to extend credit.

Honduras did not escape the drift of events. As host to the contras and because
its Salvadoran and Guatemalan border areas were havens for guerrillas operating in those
countries, Honduras was under the threat of constant military intervention. To secure the
country, the United States advanced $253 million in economic assistance by 1983, sent some
400 military advisors, and brought Honduran troops to the United States for training.
Beginning in 1983, U.S. military presence in the country increased with the construction
of a Green Beret camp At Trujillo, military exercises along the Nicaraguan border, and the
use of 5000 troops in the "Big Pine" military maneuvers. All of these activities
were designed to impress the Sandinistas in Nicaragua.

Guatemala and Costa Rica received new consideration. By 1983, the administration moved
toward the lifting of the arms embargo imposed on Guatemala in 1977. Costa Rica received
increased economic and military defense assistance, as the United States sought to move it
from its traditional neutral stance in regional affairs.30

Reagan's policies were not without opposition. Critics charged that the Soviets had no
designs on Central America, that U.S. economic sanctions forced Nicaragua to seek trade
with the Soviet bloc nations, that military assistance to El Salvador contributed to the
increase in human rights violations, that the contras were incapable of dislodging the
Sandinistas, and that the administration was ignoring the Contadora peace process. At
least one scholar argued that the Central American crisis, viewed from its historical
perspective, is a contemporary version of the long struggle for a singular nation
comprised of the five republics.31

The debate over policy pitted the White House against Congress. In piecemeal fashion,
the legislature chipped away at the administration's approach. On the eve of the 1984
presidential election, Congress finally cut military aid to the contras. The crisis
continues, however, and so too, the debate over U.S. policy.

U.S. policy toward Central America mirrors the larger policy issues. Since 1945, the
United States has responded to communist advances, real or perceived, largely by military
means. The notable exception among U.S. responses was the European Recovery Program.

The Truman administration initiated this policy toward Latin America at Mexico City in
1945, Rio de Janeiro in 1947, and Bogotá in 1948. In each instance, the primary concern
was potential external communist aggression. President Eisenhower continued this policy
but added a new dimension, the potential danger of internal communist subversion, as
illustrated by the 1954 Caracas resolution and the CIA-engineered overthrow of the Arbenz
regime in Guatemala that same year. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, while not a military
program, was a response to Fidel Castro in Cuba. Nothing, in documents currently available
to researchers in the United States, however, substantiates the charge that international
communism threatened the region. As late as 1980, the Carter administration failed to find
international communism a threat to Central America.

In Central America, as elsewhere, communism and Marxism were intertwined with local
nationalism. Diplomats stationed in the region after World War II understood this when
reporting that any threat to the established order was labeled communistic by local
leaders. Oligarchical regimes ever since continued to suppress alleged communists, and as
U.S. interest in hemispheric affairs dwindled after 1966, the facade of stability was
acceptable. Communism did not threaten the regime.

Diplomats based in the region after World War II, down through the intelligence
analysis of the 1960s, repeatedly warned that the long-term suffering of the masses posed
potential danger to the established order. But the Mutual Security Program, Food for
Peace, and Alliance for Progress programs did little to improve the quality of life in
Central America.

Only recently, first in Nicaragua and later in El Salvador, did the United States
attempt to deal with the demands of the broad-based middle sector, that group concerned
largely with constitutional and democratic government. This group, along with spokesmen
for the underprivileged, had been pressing their legitimate demands since immediately
after World War II and had been the leading advocates of nationalism during the 1950s,
only to be suppressed by military regimes.

Although Central America undoubtedly has strategic, political, and economic
significance to the United States, U.S. policy since 1945 does not substantiate that
facta factor contributing to the lack of general public attention to the
contemporary crisis.

Thus, current policy toward Central America repeats, although more emphatically, the
policies of the past. Accordingly, we are told, the world is threatened by international
communist aggression, and Latin America in generaland currently Central
America, in particularmust be protected. Meanwhile, the demands for social and
economic reform and for constitutional and democratic government receive little more than
verbal assurances.

University of North Florida, Jacksonville

Notes

1. Desmond Donnelly, Struggle for the World: The Cold War 1947-1965 (New York:
St. Martins Press, 1965); John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of Containment: A
Critical Appraisal of Post-War United States National Security Policy (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1982); Louis J. Halle, The Cold War as History (New York:
Harper and Row, 1967); Walter LaFeber, America, Russia and the Cold War, 1945-1980
(New York: Wiley and Company, 1982); and Adam Ulam, The Rivals: America and Russia
since World War II (New York: Viking, 1971).

15. Victor Alba, Alliance without Allies: The Mythology of Progress in Latin
America, translated by John Pearson (New York: Praeger, 1965); Simon G. Hanson, Dollar
Diplomacy Modern Style (Washington: Inter-American Affairs Press, 1970); Arthur M.
Schlesinger, Jr., "The Alliance for Progress: A Retrospective," in Latin
America: The Search for a New International Role, edited by Ronald G. Hellman and H. Jon
Rosenbaum (New York: John Wiley and Company, 1975). For discussions of the general
direction of U.S. foreign policy during the 1960s, see note 4.

16. Ben S. Stephansky, "New Dialogue on Latin America: The Cost of Political
Neglect," in The Search, edited by Hellman and Rosenbaum; Jerome Slater,
"The United States and Latin America: The New Radical Orthodoxy," Economic
Development and Cultural Change, Fall 1977, pp. 747-62; Federico G. Gil, "United
States-Latin American Relations in the Changing Mid-1970s," Secolas Annals,
l976, pp. 5-19; and Kalman H. Silvert et al., The Americas for a Changing World: A
Report of the Commission on United States-Latin American Relations (New York:
Quadrangle Books, 1975). For discussions of U.S. foreign policy during the 1970s, see
notes 5 and 6.

19. For a discussion of postwar Central American republics, see Thomas M. Leonard, United
States and Central America, 1944-1949: Perceptions of Political Dynamics (University
of Alabama Press, 1984).

20. Agency for International Development, U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants, July 1,
l945-June 30, 1970, A Special Report Prepared for the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
l970 (hereafter referred to as A.I.D., Special Report); United Nations, Economic
and Social Commission for Latin America, Economic and Social Conditions in Latin
America, Annual Reports, l949-1960 (hereafter referred to as ECSOCReports).

22. "Another Government is Missing," Time, 11 October 1963, pp. 32-33;
"Honduras Revolt: Another Blow to U.S.," U.S. News and World Report, 14
October 1963, p. 6; and "Wrecking the Alliance," Newsweek, 14 October
1963, p. 54 ff.

24. National Security Council Report 6009, "Capabilities of Latin America As a
Supply Base in the Event of a Nuclear Attack on the United States," 27 May 1960, in
Lot Files, Diplomatic Branch, National Archives, Washington, D.C.; National Security
Council Report 1063/64, "Survey of Latin America," 1 April 1964, in Lyndon
Baines Johnson Presidential Library; and "President Johnson Meets with Central
American Leaders," Bulletin, 29 July 1968, pp. 109-20.

29. Thomas O. Enders, "Building the Peace in Central America," United
States Department of State Bulletin, October 1982, pp. 10, 1-7; Langhorne H. Motley,
"U.S.-Central American Policy at the Crossroads," United States Department of
State, Bureau of Public Affairs, Current Policy No. 572, 2 May 1984; National Bipartisan
Commission on Central America, Report of the National Bipartisan Commission on Central
America (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1984); Ronald Reagan, "Central
America: Defending our Vital Interests," United States Department of State, Bureau of
Public Affairs, Current Policy No. 482, 27 April 1983; Ronald Reagan, "U.S. Interests
in Central America," United States Department of State, Bureau of Public Affairs,
Current Policy No. 576, 9 May 1984; George P. Shultz, "Strengthening Democracy in
Central America," Bulletin, April 1983, pp. 4, 37-45; and "Communist
Interference in El Salvador," United States Department of State, Bureau of Public
Affairs, Special Report No. 80, 23 February 1981.

Thomas M. Leonard (B.S., Mount St. Marys College; M.A., Georgetown
University; Ph.D., American University) is Professor of History at the University of North
Florida, Jacksonville. Previously he hasa been a Visiting Lecturer at the Institute for
Advanced Studies, Guadalajara, Mexico, and a Fulbright Lecturer at Instituto Juan XXIII
Bahia Blanca, Argentina. Dr. Leonard is the author of two books on the political
dimensions of U.S.-Central American relations and is a previous contributor to the Review.

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author
cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do
not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the
United States Air Force or the Air University.